Editor’s note: The following essay is Part 1 in a three-part series explaining why the state of Israel, founded in 1948, has never had a divine mandate, or authentic theological claim, to the occupied Palestinian territories. The author rejects redefinitions of antisemitism which include anti-Zionism.
The introduction to the series can be found HERE.
(Deification in Christ) — “In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” [Hebrews 8:13]
“… [old covenant ceremonial law] dealt only with food and drink and ablutions, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation [by the Messiah].” [Hebrews 9:10]
“… and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God … And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” [Revelation 21:10-14]
With the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, Jewish settlers have incrementally pushed Palestinian Christians and Muslims off their centuries-old ancestral lands [sometimes legally, often-times illegally]. This is done in the name of geographically developing and expanding a Jewish state whose identity is specifically a homeland for Jews as the primary citizens. This is done “politically” and/or “theologically” as the Introduction to this essay already explained.
These colonialist activities, originally led by European Jews, reflect an ethno-nationalist political movement known as Zionism and in many cases is supported by heresies prevalent amongst Christians.
READ: The truth is out about Israel. It can no longer be ignored
The “theological” or “religious” variety of Zionism [as contrasted with the “political” variety] directly opposes God’s plan in Christ who is the telos [purpose] of the law (cf. Rom 10:4). Christ was the telos to which the “promised land” to Jews was ordered in the Old Covenant. With the advent of Christ, the meaning of the land experienced “reformation” (cf. Heb 9:10) by God who wishes all nations to know Christ and have life through him.
As do many ethno-nationalist political movements, modern Zionism in its “theological” and “religious” forms – as contrasted with the original 1917 “political” or secular form [see Introduction] – shows little concern for the legal rights of the inhabitants [Palestinians] of the land it desires to colonize and rule. In part, today’s disregard stems from modern misunderstandings and modern misapplications of divine promises which were at the ancient ethnic origins of Jewish identity thousands of years ago.
The ancient promises of land were inseparable from their tribal founding within a religious calling from God, an “irrevocable” calling (cf. Rom 11:29) but not a calling unable to be “reformed” (cf. Heb 9:10) as Saint Paul taught. Ancient Jewish ethnicity was originally tied to divine mandates, promises, and concessions for obtaining the promised land. In these matters, divine law had precedent over natural law in special circumstances of conquering the promised land and driving non-Israelis [including non-Jews] off the promised land, concessions like total warfare.
However, God reformed matters and concessions “at the time of reformation” (Heb 9:10) before and after the Messiah came, but especially after the land served its purpose for the coming of the Messiah [the Christ]. Reformation was necessary because Christ had to develop Judaism from a tribal religion into its true purpose: the universal [catholicos] and international reign of the Messiah.
The Messianic Kingdom is no longer limited to a strip of property on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. In the words of Jesus, the kingdom is not of this world.
The religious and tribal vocation of Second Temple Judaism [basically defined as the time of Jewish return from Babylonian Captivity circa 530 B.C. until the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.] was originally tied to God’s people remaining in a specific land to await the Messiah and his birth in the designated promised land (especially Bethlehem). Even before the destruction of the First Temple and beginning of the Babylonian Captivity, God already reformed specific mandates and concessions regarding the land (cf. Jeremiah 27:8-12). God is clear in Jeremiah Chapter 27 that all who resist his reigning Messiah will be removed from the promised land during the Messiah’s reign. So what will happen during the reign of God’s ultimate Messiah who resurrected from the dead?
At the ultimate Messiah’s renewal and “time of reformation” (cf. Heb 9:10) of God’s covenant, he would clarify what was intrinsic to God’s plan for humanity and what was only preparatory. He would determine concessions to be kept and concessions that would become “obsolete” (cf. Heb 8:13; Mt 5:32). By renewal and “reformation,” the Messiah would determine the ultimate form God would give to His ancient promises.
Jesus, the ultimate Messiah, did just that in His sacrifice upon the Cross, resurrection, ascension, and the founding of His Church as the “New Israel” (cf. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium #9.3).
READ: Bishops Schneider, Strickland support appeal to Pope Leo urging prayer vigil for Gaza
So, what happened to Second Temple Judaism [Jewish return from Babylonian Captivity until Roman destruction of Jerusalem] when large parts of its leadership from 30 A.D. to 70 A.D. failed in their vocation of helping the Messiah bring Israel to reformation and fulfillment? What happened when the Sanhedrin and their adherents persisted in rejection of the Messiah who gave the awaited renewal and final form of the covenant? They were removed from the land.
A “hardening came upon them” (cf. Rom 11:25 RSV). Judaism eventually became an ethno-religious community, dispersed among the nations, and operating outside of God’s will whenever it taught rejection of Jesus Christ: “As regards the gospel they are enemies of God” (Rom 11:28 RSV).
Likewise, many of our good Christian associates live as “enemies of God,” but they still keep civil law and their civil rights. Whenever Christians sin “mortally” (cf. 1 Jn 5:16-17) they are “enemies of God,” but keep all civil rights when crimes against man are not committed. However, without repentance, they lose divine rights until recommitment to Jesus.
We must understand Saint Paul’s “enemies” statement theologically and not ethnically, not in antisemitic fashion. Refusing to acknowledge their error and loss of covenantal status, Jews who resist Jesus’ teachings mistakenly believed they still possessed God’s mandates over the land. Saint Paul is saying they actually lost God’s mandate of divine authority to “bind and loose” (cf. Deut 18:19, Mt 16:19) and rule the ancient promised land. They have no divine mandate to take the land.
Acting like they still possessed God’s mandate, and remaining unrepentant toward Jesus, they became rebels to the true and renewed covenant of the Messiah. In Saint Paul’s words, they became “Israel-according-to-the-flesh,” in contrast with the true Israel of God (cf. Rom 9:4-8), the Church (Gal 6:16; LG #9.3). In consciously rejecting the Messiah, they were no longer the true Israel of God, fulfilled according to the promises, the Israel of the Messiah.
After granting the covenantal rebels 40 years to change their minds and accept Jesus, God destroyed the Second Temple of Israel-according-to-the-flesh in 70 A.D. and exiled adherents of the Sanhedrin in order for them to accept and eventually recognize the temple of the Messiah, the risen and glorified body of Jesus Christ. God even ordained the Romans destroy the Second Temple on the exact same day in 70A.D. as the Babylonians did 600 years earlier, as a sign to remember ancient Israel’s apostasy and a warning to Christians (cf. 1 Cor 10:6).
READ: Holy See urges two-state solution for Israel, Palestine at the UN
While Catholics might be moving into similar apostasy today in their moral living, poor witness, and abuse scandals, the problem with modern Jewish Zionists is their failure to admit that their primary religious vocation as pre-Messiah or pre-Christian Jews was to bring the nations to accept the Christ [or Messiah].
Contrary to modern distortions, the primary vocation of Jews was not just to live in the Promised Land, but rather that the land existed to serve the Messiah’s coming and they were to prepare the people and the land to meet him, as many passages in the Talmud imply.
According to a great Hebrew scholar, who later became Saint Paul, the Messiah was always the purpose, the telos [“end”] of the law or covenants (cf. Rom 10:4; Eph 1:10). An article from a year ago, “Against ‘Catholic’ Zionism,” covered this. Thus, according to the Mosaic covenant, the Jews were only tenants while God was the landowner who was going to send His Son to inherit the land as His first dominion (cf. Mt 21:33-46). The Mosaic covenant and promise for the Jews to live in the land was subject to and secondary to fidelity to the Messiah (cf. Deut 18:19; Jeremiah ch. 27). Reject the Messiah, then lose Jewish governance over Jerusalem and divine authority as servants (cf. Jeremiah 27). Lose all mandates, but never lose the irrevocable calling.
Christianity was always primary in God’s intention and purpose for creation (cf. Eph 1:4-5). As Saint Augustine teaches, Christianity is true Judaism which has been brought into the age of the Messiah with a new temple and new rites/promises [cf. Heb 8:6, 9:23] and for all the nations. Christianity rests upon the law and the prophets. For these reasons, Saint Augustine taught in his Commentary on Psalm 76, as seen in a previous essay:
- “[Those who have rejected Christ] are not worthy to be called Jews, except only in the flesh.” [ch. 1]
- “The true Judea, then, is the Church of Christ, believing in that King, who hath come out of the tribe of Judah through the Virgin Mary.” [ch. 1]
- “Concerning Israel also we ought so to take it as we have concerning Judaea: as they were not the true Jews [those rejecting Jesus], so neither was that the true Israel … the true Sion is the Church of Christians.” [ch. 2]
READ: Too many Christians are turning a blind eye to the suffering of innocent Palestinians
Zionists will always fail to see the Church as the new Israel and beginning of the true Promised Land [“partaking in the divine nature” (cf. 2 Pet 1:4)] because only in accepting Jesus fully [including His mysteries and rites as High Priest and true Temple] would they realize they no longer have to fight for the geographic land by the Mediterranean. It is superseded (cf. Eph 1:10 “recapitulated”) by Christ: “My kingdom is not of this world” (Jn 18:36). The physical land’s purpose (or telos) (cf. Rom 10:4) has been fulfilled and become, in Saint Paul’s words, “obsolete” (cf. Heb 8:13).
The Messiah has recapitulated Israel in the New Covenant [see Benedict XVI where he explains “supersedes” as recapitulation (cf. Eph 1:10) and not simple replacement]. Ancient Israel’s purpose was thereby transformed from awaiting the Messiah into supporters of the Messiah who was born in Bethlehem by the Virgin Mary, as foretold by the prophets.
The land that served Jesus’ birth is transformed by Jesus’ death and resurrection into divine liturgies as the heavenly Jerusalem is brought down to earth by those with the mandate to bind and loose: “…whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven…” (cf. Mt 16:19; 18:18).
There in the rites of baptism and eucharistic worship which the Messiah instituted, God makes us sons in His Son (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church #52). This continues until the Son has finished building the true temple, His mystical body, the true Israel and dwelling-place of God (cf. 1 Pet 2:5,9). There is no longer Jew or Greek distinctions in Christ and so geographic land does not matter either (cf. Gal 3:28-29).
Theological Zionists who await another Messiah and/or who reject the apostolic Church of the Messiah [many Dispensationalist Christians] are rebels to God’s plan. They mistakenly believe that Israel-according-to-the-flesh still has a divine mandate to the prior physical land of ancient Israel. They now violate divine law, natural law, and civil law in trying to take it by force. This is lawlessness and recognized as such by most nations not fooled by false prophecies.
The destroyed Second Temple of ancient Israel is a reminder to accept the resurrection of the Messiah. It is a reminder to stop thinking primarily in terms of material fulfilment of the promises or “according-to-the-flesh” (Rom 9:3) superiority. The land is no longer promised to Jews alone as descendants of Abraham because there has been a “time of reformation” (Heb 9:10; cf. Zechariah 14:21).
If anything, the land was actually and originally promised to all the descendants of Abraham who now all live in that land as Jews, Christians, and Muslims (cf. Gen 22:17). For those who ask, “Can’t there be a both/and fulfilment?” of God’s promises where the physical land still belongs to the Jews even though Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment, the answer is yes: the land belongs “both/and” to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Due to mistakenly believing that past divine mandates or promises still apply materially today – instead of now being fulfilled in Christ and recapitulated (cf. Ephesians 1:10) and “reformed” (Heb 9:10) in new and better forms – modern theological Zionism shows almost no concern for the Palestinians.
As Palestinian territory that was never under Jewish control at the state of Israel’s founding in 1948, the international community considers Gaza and the separate Palestinian territory of the West Bank as illegally occupied territory by the state of Israel. The Palestinian territories are lawfully the possession of the Palestinians, not Jewish Europeans [Ashkenazi] or Americans who covet it for theological Zionism. Those lands have belonged to Palestinians for nearly 2,000 years as the majority population. Jews are welcome to live there by legal means but have no divine mandate to rule there or take lands contrary to civil and international laws.
READ: ‘No strategy’ in Gaza? Former Israeli officials denounce Netanyahu’s ‘futile war’
Palestinian family possessions of those lands and even current lands of the recent state of Israel date back to: thousands of Jews in Jerusalem becoming Christians in 33 A.D. as the fulfillment of Second Temple Judaism in Jesus the Messiah (cf. Acts 2:41); the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D., which brought Second Temple Judaism to “obsoletion” (Hebrews 8:13); expulsion of Jews from the Holy Land circa 130 A.D. for rebellion against Rome; Christian dominance of the lands since Constantine in the 4th century; Muslim conquests since the 6th-7th centuries; Crusades of the 11th-13th ccenturies; Ottoman population movements from the 16th century through the 19th century, etc.
At no time did Jewish immigrants have majority control over the land that became the 1948 state of Israel. Jewish settlers only started to gain control of Palestinian lands after the British started governance of the territories of the former Ottoman empire, beginning around 1917. Before 1917 and the Balfour Declaration – which led to British state-sponsorship of Jewish immigration into Palestine – the Jewish population of Palestine was estimated at about 2-5 percent (circa 1880 A.D.) [cf. Pappe]. The Christian population was 10-15 percent. The Muslim population was at least 80 percent.
Who really “possessed” the land just before Zionism began and the military and later official British Mandate to govern Palestine? Clearly not the Ashkenazi Jews whose heritage was the European nations from which they began to immigrate into British Mandated Palestine.
There is a reason the territory was named “Palestine” and not “Israel” from the 2nd century A.D. to the 20th century. Israel had ceased existing 2,700 years earlier [see Introduction]. Additionally, all the people there at the start of the 20th century were already the descendants of Abraham and not just Judah: either spiritually or through Isaac and Ishmael, and/or the sons of Keturah, and/or Esau’s descendants, etc., so all were Semites (cf. Gen 22:17).
Part II of the series, The Present Situation & Persecution of Christians in Palestine, will be published at a later date.
Reprinted with permission from Deification in Christ.
